Hot Off the Grill

Everything tastes better when it’s cooked on the grill! Just knowing there’s an outdoor feast ahead makes guests arrive with a hearty appetite and the assurance that there will be a good time. Natives of Texas, South Carolina, Alabama, and Kansas City have known all along about the nuances of barbecue. And those of us who live in the North have come a long way from the once-a-year Fourth of July fête when we ate chicken, burgers, and ribs that all tasted the same—charred with a sweet and spicy sauce on top. Today, we want the great flavor of grilled food flavored by the brush of an herb, the smoke of fruitwood, a distinctive marinade, or a savory salsa. And each spring it seems we send our kitchen ovens into an earlier retirement as we get impatient for the taste of grilled whole chickens, giant shrimp in the shell, mussels, game, and every garden vegetable imaginable.